


Chaos

by Wrathofscribbles



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 14:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: Friend or foe?  Demon or saviour?





	Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Look at me, dabbling in another of Square Enix's creations. Doesn't make it mine, sadly, not a single bit of it :(

He does not fear the others when they join him, not at first.  He  _welcomes_  the sudden storm of their presence, the echo chamber of their voices, the distraction they provide from the wreckage of his mind, unspooling like used film tape under Hojo's scalpel, memories slipping through his fingers in splashes of ink to water and their colours mixing until he can't make heads or tails of them.  Not that it matters in the end, they all seep away with every methodical cut prying him open for the world to see, turning him inside out for a madman's curiosity and  _experiments_.

The unavoidable,  _absolute_ agony of those early days, the mako poisoning, the drug-induced hazes, the confusion, the torment, the moments of clarity buried under the shock of seeing his  _organs out in the open_ to be poked and prodded at -  _alive, **alive** , how can I  **still be alive?** - _they collide and combine and pull him under until he cannot tell truth from lie, reality from imagination, Hojo's games from the transformations ripping his body apart at the seams.

No, he does not fear the others when they join him, not at first.  Not when there is a greater horror looming over him day in and day out, hours at a time, haunting him even when he is tossed aside for rest and healing, that voice, that  _laughter_ -

But he learns to.

* * *

They pull him, they push him, they snap and they hiss and they snarl, they fight him and each other, make a nightmare in his skull, a playground, a  _war_.  They rip into his past and command his present, every breath a struggle and step an age, no respite for the wicked, the damned, the devil.  Too much blood on his hands for peace.

Let us out, says one.

 _Let us help_ , says another.

 **Let us kill** , says a third.

The last remains silent, lurking, watching,  _waiting_.  It is  _that one_ he fears the most.

* * *

Galian Beast is the easiest, he learns.  A canine in form and one at heart, a simple creature for all his ferocity.  Freedom to run, freedom to play, a promise to feast and hunt another day.  He craves the thrill of the fight and blood on his claws, but only the death of those who threaten and maim, those who mean to kill the host and his - the humans, the pack.  Vincent isn't the strongest of them by any means, and he is no master with a chain, but it's _his_ body they all share and that alone grants him command over the one who joined him second.

Hellmasker, the third of the lot, isn't  _worse_ than Galian Beast so much as he's more  _unsettling_ , a product of Hojo's madness without question.  His "aid" comes in the form of awkward movements, disjointed and robotic, lulling an enemy into a false sense of superiority, and striking faster than the eye can see with a chainsaw to cleave limb from torso or a spray of needles from the ever-changing mass of his physical shell, dabbed on his tongue only moments prior with a practiced touch and coated in paralytic saliva.  He'll drag his victim somewhere quiet and shadowed, humming through the stitches as he sets to work, keeping them numb and  _docile_ while he turns his fingers to instruments and picks them apart piece by piece to determine their function, their purpose, their  _workings_.  He keeps the bones as trophies, ornaments for his mask and the armour he occasionally settles around the skeletal frame he favours over the others at his disposal.  It's perhaps understandable, then, that Vincent prefers their enemies already dead by the time Hellmasker comes out.

Death Gigas isn't simple and he isn't unhinged.  He just  _is_.  A creature impervious to pain and most magic, he makes for decent crowd control with his considerable reach and brute strength.  There is no safety to be had behind or beside his lumbering gait, however, with his tendency to lash out at friend and foe alike.  He cares little for either, wishes to kill or be killed and be done with it.  He is, Vincent thinks, the embodiment of a man's last stand, devoid of hope and mercy.

Then there is the first, the voiceless one who came before the others, its introduction at the _end_ flooding a still heart with fresh blood, lungs with stale air, eyes with scenes that made no sense and ears with a woman's terrified scream.  There is something about it, something  _more_ , that has Vincent on edge whenever it comes forward, silent as the death it stole from him.  This creature has no wants, no desires, no ulterior motives for control or freedom.  It exists because it does, because it must, and Vincent doesn't know  _why_ , cannot glean anything from it when its consciousness overtakes his, when its very  _being_ settles in his tissues and  _grows_ his body to accommodate it, rather than snap and tear and reshape what is already there.

"What are you?"  He asks, when he looks in a mirror to find glowing amber eyes staring out from his reflection, bloodied fangs behind the ghastly mouth shaping his question, jagged and torn at both corners.  The light flickers above Vincent, and the shadows behind his altered reflection writhe and twist like something alive and  _there_.  There is no verbal answer, not like the others, but a barrage of images that bring him to his knees, his hands to his head as though he can claw them out from his temples.

_Fire blood decay.  Anger and fear and hatred.  Eyes gone dark, lives cut short, peace turned war.  Unfathomable.  Inevitable.  Death.  Chaos._

The creature exists, a stain on his soul, a shadow that engulfs his own.

He wishes it didn't.

* * *

Omega ascends and Vincent plummets, a million suns on his skin where the Lifestream already burns.

In but a single moment he knows he won't survive the impact, a certainty in his very  _bones_.  He's at peace with the idea.

An iron clamp in his chest, and laughter rumbling like a mountain's shift.  The familiar slide of a presence through his body, a  _tug_ and he's detached at once, would be free falling if not for the grip on his cloak, and he blinks, cannot speak, cannot get air in his lungs for more than a gasp when amber meets his gaze.

 _It is not your time_ , sighs a voice in his head, within and around and everywhere and nowhere all at once, one he's never heard before and yet knows in his  _soul._

No time left, a bated breath from the world itself, and a scarred mouth pulls wide in a fanged grin he's felt on his own face only a handful of times before, seen even less.  He latches onto a wrist to keep himself anchored, but his strength is nothing compared to that of his demon, the first, the WEAPON.  Chaos throws him clear of Omega's path, clear of death once more, and as he tumbles from the blast radius he hears the creature one last time, a gentle whisper he never thought it knew.

_Live, Vincent.  Live and be free._


End file.
